I have an odd one. We discovered one of our Scouts had several requirements on her Cooking Merit Badge marked Counselor Approved by a counselor that is not the counselor they are working with. In addition, we do not show this conselor to be connected with the Scout and none of our adults, the scout, or the scout’s parents know who this person is.
The Scout affected’s information is below.
SB User ID: 13331317
Member ID: 140485429
We’re trying to figure how this happened and what we need to do to prevent it going forward.
@LaddKettren
Most cooking requirements were approved by KH. He is a MBC for Cooking. Several requirement were signed by PO who is also a Cooking MBC.
An MBC must be connected to the Scout for the MB at the time the requirements or overall MB are marked Counselor Approved. A Scout can only be connected to a single MBC for any given MB at one time.
Per the Guide to Advancement, a Scout can work with any MBC registered in any Council. There is nothing a unit can do to prevent a Scout from working with their choice of MBC except to limit the number of MBs a Scout can on work with a single MBC and this must be a policy set for every Scout in the unit.
The requirements could have been signed off at a camp, Council or District event where the Scout did not recall the name of the MBC.
You have nothing to worry about with this MB.
We do have something to be concerned about though.
I pulled the audit log and I’m now finding these same counselors have marked more merit badge requirements for other merit badges for multiple scouts within our unit as completed.
The logs are showing individuals that are not counselors in our region, that were not connected to the scout by the leaders in our unit, the parents of the scout, or anyone else who would have provided the counselors the information necessary for the counselors to connect to the scout. The counselors are not showing in the connections for the scouts.
These scouts have not participated in events for these merit badges outside of our unit activities.
The scouts do not know these adults. The scouts have not worked with these adults.
This seems like something has occurred, possible unintentionally, that has allowed these counselors to mark requirements complete for Scouts they are not connected to or are not supposed to be connected to.
This gets more interesting. Looking at the dates, these Scouts were still in Cub Scouts when KH marked them, unless the Dec 2024 date is the date entered in the field and not the date it was entered by KH. The Scouts did not crossover until Spring 2025.
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@LaddKettren- the only time that I am aware of requirements or mb being marked complete by an mbc not showing in connections would be from a summer camp upload or event upload done by the unit. They would be a black pug or tentaroo upload.
@LaddKettren Please double check if they ever signed up for an online class for anything or possibly one in VA.
I am having the same issue.
I have a scout working on Citizenship in Society with me as his merit badge counselor. I know that I did requirement 4 with him and marked it off in November, but now my name does not appear anywhere for the requirement. Instead there is an unrelated counselor’s name, as well as a date that takes place far far before the scout even began the merit badge in Scoutbook plus. The dates don’t match up whatsoever. As a matter of fact, the scout had just barely crossed over from the pack to the troop when the requirement was marked as completed.
This has happened for 3 different scouts, all for Citizenship in Society, all for requirements 4 and 6. Two different adult names appear, and neither has any connection to our troop.
@LiralenMiers you can post the Scouts Member #s (no names) and the requirements in question and we can look.
Sure, thank you!
This affects Scout #140704333 and Scout #13562160 and Scout #136538436, all for Citizenship in Society, and all affected in the same requirements listed below. I have physical blue cards that I also fill out, so I have dates to compare Scoutbook to.
*Requirement 3a, 3b, 3c marked complete by a person not known to troop or connected to scout. I had marked this complete on 10/12/25 for 3a and 11/2/25 on 3b and 3c according to my physical copy of the blue card. Now all the dates have been changed to 3/18/24 with this new counselor name.
*Requirement 4a, 4b, 4c–completed with me according to paper blue card record on 9/27/25, but now 4a and 4b are marked as complete on 3/18/24 by a person not known to the troop or connected to the scout. 4c is marked as complete on by yet another person not known to the troop or connected to the scout for 8/15/25.
*Requirement 5 –completed with me as counselor on 11/2/25, but now the counselor’s name is changed to someone not known to the troop or connected with the scout and marked as completed 3/18/24.
*Requirement 6-completed with me as a counselor on 9/21/25 for a and b, 10/12/25 for c. Now all have been changed to the unknown name, again marked for 3/18/24. While the scout did option 1 for req 6b, now option 2 has also been marked as completed, by different counselor name than the others, this time the date being 8/15/25.
@LiralenMiers that other MBC is in the same state as you (different council) - please make sure the scouts did not work on the MB at some event or something for us
I suppose it could somehow be possible, but I’m not sure why any of those three kids would work with a merit badge counselor on a requirement already completed. It would also be confusing for a merit badge counselor to mark a requirement complete that had already been entered by myself, and change the date to be completed almost a year prior. Two of those kids had just crossed over from the pack at that point.
Take logic out of it - just trying to find any thread of data is all
I have this issue as well and it affects Scouts 141929649 and 141929842. The weird part is mine are dated before the scouts even joined the program. Can someone please clear out the Cooking merit badge for both of these scouts for me? I have entered things after their Winter camp, but I am more than happy to re-enter those once this is resolved.
@EmilySchnick_Baker on those 2 - are you sure the parent (or Scout) did not go in and just mark the items complete? I do not see a MBC on my system - I see completed requirements under the 2025 version
There is no counselor and we have no idea who those people are that signed it off. There are completions in there that are under my name because they just went to winter camp and completed them. I wasn’t sure if it was easier to have you remove the whole thing. If not, please remove anything signed off or approved by (removed) or (removed). Both scouts have signatures dated 8/26/25 but they didn’t sign up until 9/30/25.
@EmilySchnick_Baker in that situation you can just go in and clear dates that you need to clear yourself
how do I clear the dates?
For MB sub requirements like that you click the > to open the date and clear it
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@EmilySchnick_Baker
- look for this
Then click that chevron to see the date
Today all of the other names have disappeared and the dates are back to their original dates with my name as the merit badge counselor.
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